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Freddy vs. Jason
**1/2
Cinema
Review - September 6, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 18. USA.
97 minutes. Directed by Ronny Yu. Produced by Sean S. Cunningham. Written
by Damian Shannon, Mark Swift; from characters created by Wes Craven, Victor
Miller. Starring Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter,
Kelly Rowland, Katharine Isabelle, Chris Marquette, Brendan Fletcher, Tom
Butler, Lochlyn Munro, Kyle Labine, Zack Ward.
Well, fuck me up and down with a rusty rubber
hose and decidedly call me gobsmacked. I have something to say on the
"Freddy vs. Jason" issue. No, back up -- there actually is
a "Freddy vs. Jason" issue. The movie we all knew was going to be the biggest
piece of lazy knock-off scum, borne out of the most desperate of silly
high-concept ideas, is finally here. And it isn't that bad. This world does
indeed surprise you all the time.
I started getting that funny feeling when I was
casually looking at the television set, and on came the trailer. And there
they were, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, standing in a corridor, basked
in smoke and the slick colours of a music video, facing each other off. I
decided that there was nothing to worry about. That this would be cool. It
would be fun to see these icons going at it, cranking each other's guts out
in a slick modern movie. Oh, what an original thought this was, and how much
fun I would have at this picture while everyone else just carted themselves
along and declared it to be awful as a matter of course. Or that's what I
figured, until I glanced at a couple of message boards, and realised everyone
else was thinking the same damn thing.
No matter. Truth is truth, and there's only so
much of it to go around. But before now, we all did think this was going
to be crap, didn't we? This project must have been in the pipeline for a
decade or more by now, waiting for a final draft screenplay and for copyright
issues to be resolved. Through it all, whenever somebody brought the prospect
up, I bickered and scoffed and said that it was a stupid idea, that it didn't
make sense because the universes of "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday
the 13th" were separate, and it would be trash because these two series have
gone on so long that nobody but genre freaks can tell one from another, or
remember which ones they've seen.
But now is the time to loosen up. Why care if
it doesn't make any sense, as long as it's kind of enjoyable? The long wait
has done wonders for our receptiveness, and it looks like the filmmakers
know that. "Freddy vs. Jason" is such a big joke that now it's arrived, it's
ready to laugh with us.
Not that the movie is a satire -- it's just gleefully
stupid, with high energy. The story: Freddy can no longer invade the dreams
of kids on Elm Street, because his name has been banished from Springwood,
and if nobody knows him, nobody can fear him, and nobody can dream about
him. Thus he plans a comeback by invading Jason's dreams, pretending to be
his mother calling out to him, and using him as a puppet to slaughter more
kids. The idea is that people will assume it's Freddy, start talking about
him again, and allow him to get inside their heads once more.
I could tell you that this really doesn't make
much sense, because Freddy managed to get into dreams in the original movie
just fine. Or I might wonder how he manages to work his way into the dreams
of Jason. And I do genuinely quibble about the fact that this set-up makes
the first hour of "Freddy vs. Jason" a fairly standard slasher picture, with
not-very-interesting teenage specimens drinking beer and having sex before
being hacked to bits by a madman.
My enthusiasm, however, was not thwarted. This
misses the chance of actually being a good movie, but it feels energetic
and colourful, and has more interest in its own visual splendour than in
pretending it actually cares about the kids who are getting killed. It builds
to a great last half hour, where, yes, it is mighty enjoyable to see those
legendary characters messing each other up. And it has a line that I shall
recall with fondness for years, poetic and wonderful in its simplicity: "Dude,
that goalie was pissed about somethin'!"
Other than to point out that the director is Ronny
Yu, who did a much better job than anyone had expected on another horror
sequel, "Bride of Chucky" (1999), not much more can really be said. Sure,
"Freddy vs. Jason" is an issue now, but it's not, like, the war on
terror.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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